LUMINESCENCE | K.NJ ✓

I - THAI RAMEN

CHAPTER ONE - THAI RAMEN

THE REALIZATION hit Nouri at an odd and totally unexpected time in her life - the realization that you never really know when you're doing something if it will be the last time that you experience it.

She came to posses this knowledge past ten o'clock on a rainy Friday night during her fifteenth year, as she sat on a sofa in front of her T.V. with a bowl of instant ramen in her lap. It wasn't just any instant ramen, though - this bowl of pre-packaged noodles was Thai instant ramen. The exchange student living in her house that year had brought an abundance of the noodle packets in both shrimp and tom kha gai flavors from her home in Bangkok and had generously shared them with Nouri. They were delicious - far more enjoyable than the bland sixty-cent instant ramen she was used to buying in the States.

As her eyes took in the crime show being displayed on her screen, the audio from the speakers mixing with the dull pit-a-pat of the rain outside, she took in her last forkful of spicy noodles with a sigh of contentment before remembering that she had just finished off the final packet of Thai ramen. There were no more bowls of spicy shrimp or zesty chicken flavored noodles to be had.

She felt an odd pang in her chest as she pondered this. If she had remembered that she had heated up the last remaining package of ramen before finishing it, she surely would have savored it more rather than scarfing it down like a rabid animal. Her mouth was tugged down at the corners as she thought even more: what if that was the last time in her entire life that she would ever eat Thai instant ramen? What if she never experienced the taste of the dish again? She felt as if she had wasted the moment without properly cherishing it, and she wholeheartedly regretted that.

And so, naturally, she began to cry.

Maybe this was an overreaction - she was a fifteen year old hormonal teenage girl, though, so it shouldn't really have been all that surprising - but it wasn't just because of the ramen that the blonde freckled girl began to sob. It was the door that her last bowl of Thai instant noodles had opened in the young girl's mind.

As her parents rushed into the room, doing their best to soothe their young daughter's cries while being completely in the dark as to why she was sobbing into an empty bowl of a sodium filled snack late at night - not to mention her poor Thai exchange sister standing in complete shock and confusion as she took in the sight, all Nouri could think about was the fact that every time she did something, it could very well and possibly be the last time she experienced such a thing.

She was now equipped with the knowledge and deep understanding that life was fleeting and short - each moment spent was a moment she couldn't get back. She should cherish every breath she takes, every sound she hears, every sight that crosses her line of vision because it wasn't a guarantee that anything would ever happen to her again.

Each bowl of Thai ramen could possibly be her last, without her knowing it.

This knowledge was more of a curse than a blessing.

She lived life on the edge - not in a cool way, like the people who did jaw-dropping stunts on motorcycles or climbed to the peak of Mt. Everest in their free time. It was more like she lived life on the edge of her seat, so to speak. Rather than her considerably well-developed outlook on life for a youth still going through the worst of puberty giving her a calm, intellectual presence, it made her jittery, overly excitable, and almost overbearing in some ways.

She wanted people to worry about this the way that she did, but the majority of her peers didn't care about much else other than when the next episode of their favorite T.V. show was coming out or what they were going to wear to their eighth grade graduation ceremony. Which was normal.